€15m boost for Cork’s Victorian Quarter

Up to €15 million is to be invested by a range of businesses in the next few years in Cork’s ‘Victorian Quarter’, anchored by the rejuvenated MacCurtain Street, where up to a dozen new businesses have arrived in the past two years.

The signicant sums will include major hotel investments, an upgrade at the centrepiece Metropole, and a new adjoining hotel by the same owners alongside on the PJ O’Hea/Patrick’s Quay site, which will total 280 beds between them.

And, next month, a striking new wine/cocktail and tapas bar, called Cask, will open by the entrance to Isaacs Hotel and Greenes Restaurant compex, also currently undergoing significant investments. Set in a former antique shop, Lynes and Lynes, Cask is set to open in mid-February. The fit-out, with salvaged Victorian era bar joinery, is almost complete.

On top of the sums being invested by private businesses in the recently-branded Victorian Quarter, City Hall is to spend c €2.5m (50% EU funded) on a new bike and pedestian bridge from Merchants Quay to Harley Street/MacCurtain Street.

The street will revert to two-way traffic once the new Kent Station reorientation towards Horgans Quay is completed. It’s been one-way since 1972, and the change-back includes lay-bys, and street furniture upgrades as part of City Hall’s CORE strategy to define and uplift six specific city sections or quarters.

The ‘Victorian Quarter’ got a formal branding last night, at which it was pointed out the street has the highest number of people working on the upper floor levels of any city street (1,000 jobs), has 3,000 students in the vicintiy’s private and public schools, and over 100 businesses.